Sonny Clark

Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 – January 13, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom.^[1]

Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town east of Pittsburgh.^[2] His parents were originally from Stone Mountain, Georgia.^[2] His miner father, Emery Clark, died of a lung disease two weeks after Sonny was born.^[2] Sonny was the youngest of eight children.^[2] At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh.

While visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a couple months, was working with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco in 1953. Clark toured the United States and Europe with DeFranco until January 1956, when he joined The Lighthouse All-Stars, led by bassist Howard Rumsey.

Wishing to return to the east coast, Clark served as accompanist for singer Dinah Washington in February 1957 in order to relocate to New York City. In New York, Clark was often requested as a sideman by many musicians, partly because of his rhythmic comping. He frequently recorded for Blue Note Records as one of their house musicians, playing as a sideman with many hard bop players, including Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Curtis Fuller, Grant Green, Philly Joe Jones, Clifford Jordan, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Art Taylor, and Wilbur Ware. He also recorded sessions with Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Billie Holiday, Stanley Turrentine, and Lee Morgan.

As a leader, Clark recorded albums Dial "S" for Sonny (1957, Blue Note), Sonny's Crib (1957, Blue Note), Sonny Clark Trio (1957, Blue Note), Cool Struttin' (1958, Blue Note), Blues in the Night (1979, Blue Note, also released on Standards ), and a second piano trio album titled Sonny Clark Trio (1960, Time Records).

Clark died in New York City on January 13, 1963 (aged 31). The official cause was listed as a heart attack, but the likely cause was a heroin overdose.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

Close friend and fellow jazz pianist Bill Evans dedicated the composition "NYC's No Lark" (an anagram of "Sonny Clark") to him after his death, included on Evans' Conversations with Myself (1963). John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Ray Drummond, and Bobby Previte recorded an album of Clark's compositions, Voodoo (1985), as the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet. Zorn also recorded several of Clark's compositions with Bill Frisell and George E. Lewis on News for Lulu (1988) and More News for Lulu (1992).

Compilations

• Standards (Blue Note, 1998)

• Sonny Clark -Pittsburgh Music History

• 1931 births
• 1963 deaths
• Hard bop pianists
• Mainstream jazz pianists
• Bebop pianists
• Post-bop pianists
• West Coast jazz pianists
• American jazz pianists
• American male jazz pianists
• People from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
• Jazz musicians from Pittsburgh
• Blue Note Records artists
• Xanadu Records artists
• 20th-century American pianists
• 20th-century American male musicians

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